October 12, 2009

Reverse SEO has become critical for all types of organizations. Throughout history, it has never been easier for your customers, competitors, and employees to publish items online that can have a negative impact on your business. If those items gain exposure in Google, Yahoo!, and other major search engines, their effects can last for years. Regardless of whether you operate a small firm with less than ten employees or a multi-billion dollar company, bad publicity can decimate your business.

This article will introduce you to the fundamentals of reverse SEO. We’ll explain how it works and the advantages of using it. We’ll also describe a seldom talked about strategy of leveraging reverse SEO as a preventative approach to online reputation management (ORM). You will discover why many companies are rushing to SEO specialists to enlist their assistance for damage control. If you are not currently using reverse SEO to limit the effects of bad publicity, your company may be vulnerable.

How Reverse Search Engine Optimization Works

Google ranks pages based on several criteria. One of its organic algorithm’s ranking parameters is a website’s authority within its space. The more authority a site has, the easier it is for a page on that site to rank well and control its position. When an authoritative page carries bad publicity about your company, it can gain exposure to a wide audience. This is the problem that reverse search engine optimization resolves.

Reverse SEO specialists have a number of tools at their disposal they can use to suppress bad publicity in the search engines. First, they’ll analyze the authority of high-ranking pages that speak negatively of your business. Then, they’ll formulate a strategy to push those pages into the depths of the search engines’ organic listings, limiting their visibility.

Long-Term Advantages Of Reverse SEO

A single unsatisfied customer can create havoc for your company by spreading deceptive stories of poor service or shoddy workmanship. Similarly, one resentful employee can anonymously unfurl a string of damaging diatribes. If such stories and diatribes are merely told to another person, their effects are limited and temporary. By contrast, if they are published online and receive exposure in Google, they can have catastophic results for your business.

This type of derogatory press tends to gain a groundswell of momentum, regardless of its accuracy. By suppressing these pages in the search engines, reverse SEO allows you to control the effects of bad publicity. It helps you to smother the flames before they grow out of control.

Reverse SEO: The Preemptive Strike

Most companies launch a reverse SEO campaign after bad publicity has already crept toward the top of Google’s organic listings. That is a reactive approach. The problem is that high-ranking pages with negative press tend to generate inbound links. Those links further strengthen the pages’ positions. As a result, they become more difficult to suppress.

You can use reverse SEO as a preventative measure. By launching a campaign that controls the top organic positions, you can prevent negative publicity from gaining exposure in the first place. In effect, you can insulate your company from the whims and machinations of frustrated customers, unhappy employees, and deceitful competitors.

Search engine marketing (SEM) increases your company’s exposure within your space. On its own, an SEM campaign can deliver staggering results that translate directly to your business’s bottom line. However, bad publicity can disrupt even the most formidable of search engine marketing campaigns.

Reverse SEO is a vital component of any SEM effort. It protects the integrity of your search engine marketing campaign and supports its growth. The same tools that can be used to control the top positions in Google and prevent negative press from gaining traction can seed inbound links to your website. This creates a well-rounded SEM campaign that is potent on multiple fronts.

Damage Control And Online Reputation Management

If your company enjoys exposure on the internet, whether from social networking sites, professional online trade journals, or broad media, online reputation management is important. The number of authoritative websites that your customers, employees, and competitors can use to spread negative press about your business is increasing. Making matters worse, many journalists have become lax in sourcing their stories. ORM and reverse SEO can work seamlessly together to control the spread of bad publicity.

Negative press does not need to be accurate in order to rank well in Google. And that makes reverse SEO more critical for your company than ever.

Lets hope that Google starts to recognize this as a black hat strategy and starts punishing companies who participate in these efforts.

Most negative reviews are written for a reason, and most are written by angry customers who have already tried to resolve their problems with the company and failed.

I call the negative review the conscious of last resort because when a company refuses to make good on its products they deserve to get negative publicity and I as a budding SEO specialist would absolutely refuse to help anyone bury negative publicity about their company if I felt it was well deserved.

I myself have manage to influence corporate policy on several occasions will a well placed review of a company and If I ever find them working to bury that content I would report them in a heartbeat to Google and keep complaining until someone listened.

And that company would have made a online enemy for LIFE! Not something a corporation needs to do in these uncertain times if you know what I mean.

I have a very good reputation in the circles I hang because they know I will always tell the truth no matter who gets hurt, including myself. And that will never change. I’m also an activist looking for a reason to happen and any company I catch doing this will earn my scorn forever.

Google is already saying that SEO will matter less and less in the future as the semantic web becomes a reality and content is already king. So let these poor companies waste their money on SEO experts and who knows it might even work for a little while, the Google will change and all that expensive effort will just be a waste of time.

A company would be better off dealing with such a person personally and asking them what it would take to get them to write a secondary review explaining how the company had made good on the complaint than trying to bury the negative review.

Remember no matter how crazy something sounds, if someone finds out your trying to hide it then they will believe you have something to hide!

I have to apologize for the grammatical and spelling errors in the above comment of mine. It was very late when I wrote that comment.

I am also not the most perfect writer either. However when something has to be said, let not a rule of grammar prevent you from taking in the information presented to you.

No that is not the purpose of the semantic web at all. what it will help do is prevent the type of gaming discussed in this article from happening and actually creating an effective benefit for the companies involved.

No matter how you spin it what this writer is advocating is helping companies bury their dirt where one one will see it whether the issues have been resolved or not.

Not only is this unacceptable to the average consumer, it also puts the ethical and moral aspects of the writer in question to a point where someone like me could never trust my business with them in the future.

Running a business is more than your own personal profit machine. You are providing a service that we as an interconnected society come to depend on in varying degrees depending on the value of said good or service offered. Associating yourself with such questionable techniques as mentioned in this article will create a general sense of mistrust that will grow as the internet becomes more and more interconnected and independent webs of trusts are established by not profit organizations and individuals with no profit motive.